


Peripheral

by moodyme



Series: Pynch Week 2019 [4]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship, Pynch Week 2019, little kids having little crushes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2019-09-26
Packaged: 2020-10-27 03:24:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20753558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moodyme/pseuds/moodyme
Summary: Or, three times Adam and Ronan could have met, but didn't.Pynch Week Day 4: Meet cute /Missed connection





	Peripheral

**Author's Note:**

> I think I only loosely fit this story around today's theme.

A little boy with fair hair followed behind his equally fair haired mother. She had a firm grip on his wrist, afraid her 6 year old son would dart away from her in the packed grocery store parking lot and get hit by a car. As they walked to the entrance, the boy's mother grumbled about how everybody always seemed to do their shopping at the same time on Saturday mornings. The little boy did not point out what he was thinking, that if his mother disliked shopping when everybody else did, then she should just shop later. Or earlier. He didn't point this out, because he knew that it would only earn him a raised eyebrow and a tsk of her tongue. It was better, the boy had learned, to not point out the things that seemed obvious to him. Adults didn't like that sort of thing.

Once they entered the store, his mother chose a cart, pushed it a few feet, and pushed it back to the cart area to choose another. The wheels had been too squeaky. The other shopping cart's wheels were deemed silent enough and the two set of down the isles.

To the boy, his mother seemed to be choosing items at random; a box of this, a can of that, a package with words he couldn't quite read yet printed on it. They got to the cereal isle, and the little boy noticed a pack of boys, all close in age to him, at the other end. They seemed to be arguing about which type of cereal they should get. Their mom let them, for awhile, before telling them to each pick the kind they wanted, which prompted a chorus of joyous whooping from the other boys. The little boy was startled, a bit, by her voice. It was like. Like music, which was funny, because she wan't singing. 

He watched, jealously, as they picked their cereal's. He knew that they were getting the ones on the end of the isle, the one's that had the brightly colored boxes with cartoon looking characters plastered all over the box and that offered prizes and puzzles on the back. His family got their cereal form the other end of the isle, where the store's name, Adam knew, was plastered on each of the boxes.

When his mother let out a disgusted sounding 'Hmph' he looked up at her. She was watching the family, too. But she didn't look awed or jealous. She looked the same way she always did when he pointed out something that was obvious to him. Like there was something dumb and annoying about them. The little boy tried to make the same face, didn't feel comfortable, but he looked back at the family again. And he looked at them, not in awe, but like they were dumb and annoying.

A few moments later, the family left, each of the boys proudly holding their box of cereal in their arms, and he and his mother continued down the isles in the opposite way the other family had gone.

Ronan Lynch, at ten years old, had been jealous of his older brother plenty of times. But he was doubly so today. Declan had just had his Confirmation, and Ronan looked at his forehead, which glistened from the cross of oil, with unbridled envy. Ronan had been consumed with jealousy all week. It was supremely unfair, he thought, that they had gotten to have their first Holy Communion together, but that he wasn't allowed to get confirmed at the same time.

"Two more years, Ronan," His dad said, cuffing him around the neck and guiding him down the stairs of St. Agnes.

"Are you sure dad?" Declan (who had the new and shiny second middle name of Michael, after his confirmation saint) asked. Ronan shifted in his dad's hold enough to look at him, mustering all the spite he could into that look. He knew, after all, what his brother would say next. "I'm not sure Ronan will have reached the age of reason by then, he's still so immature."

"Shut your pie hole," Ronan hissed, making sure he did so as quietly as possible, terrified the priest (or worse, his mom, who was several steps ahead chattering with Matty) would overhear.

"I mean, I guess once you do get to go through Confirmation," Declan paused, pretending to consider his brother carefully, "You could always choose St. Jude Thaddeus for you patron saint. Y'know, because you're a lost cause?"

"Boys," Their dad said sternly, preventing the fight from escalating. Probably to blows.

Ronan quietly fumed in his fathers hold, still burning with jealousy and indignation. As they made their way to the car, Ronan noticed a new car in the parking lot; a beat-up looking truck. They didn't usually get visitors at St. Agnes, except for sometimes on Easter and Christmas, so the truck caught Ronan's attention. When he felt his dads pace slow, he glanced up and saw that his dad had noticed the truck too. He looked suspicious. Ronan looked back to the truck, and saw one of the other parishioners that he vaguely recognized approach it. The drivers window rolled down, and the two men started talking. He felt his dads hand relax on his neck. Just before they continued walking back to their car, Ronan saw the blond boy sitting in the passenger seat. He had dusty hair, a strangely serious expression on his face. Ronan had the wild and sudden thought that he was the kind boy he had overheard girls whisper about in Tiger Beat or J-14. Cute, or whatever. He squashed the thought down and refused to think of it ever again.

Adam Parrish was 12 when he was invited to Jenni Haufser's birthday party at Henrietta's bowling alley. He had been invited to her birthday parties since they had had the same class in kindergarten, and every year since then. They weren't great friends, not really, but they were the kind of close that came with knowing someone for more than a decade. And she never got mad about him never returning the invitation. Adam suspected she understood, in a way. That Jenni's mom, understood, too. He still remembered Jenni's dad, after all.

Their group wasn't the only one throwing balls down the lanes, and drinking too much soda, and cheering too loudly when they got a good score. But Adam didn't pay the other groups any attention, he was too caught up in trying not to overthink the way he thought Lori Keefer was looking at him. Because she was looking at him a little bit like she hated him, had ever since she saw him and Jenni laughing at something he couldn't even remember.

Despite him trying to ignore her, Lori, apparently, didn't want to be ignored. She plopped down next to him with a huff and mumbled, "So, do you like Jenni or something? Like, _like _like her?"

"Um," Adam said, genuinely surprised and confused by the question. A little embarrassed, as well. "No?"

"She's really pretty," Lori said, looking at Jenni, who was sipping her soda and waiting for her turn to bowl again. Adam looked at her, trying to see if she was pretty. He supposed that her dark hair and hazel eyes and button nose all combined into a pretty girl. 

"Yeah, I guess," Adam said, shrugging. "But we're just friends."

"Then, do you-" They both turned to look behind them, startled at the loud whooping that was emitted by the two boys behind them. One of them, Adam saw, had just gotten a strike. Probably the boy with the dark, curly hair, how was pumping his fist in the air. Satisfied that there was nothing exciting to see, they turned back in their seats and Lori continued, "Do you know if she has a crush on anybody?"

"Uh," Adam said, and he tried to remember if Jenni had said anything to him about anyone. He was about to tell her this when he thought 'oh' and swiveled to look at Lori more closely. "Oh, you _like_ like Jenni?"

"No!' Lori exclaimed, her face quickly resembling a tomato or a firetruck or some other bright red thing. "I, first of all, I- how do- it's not, and even if it- there's just-"

"It's okay if you do," Adam said, making sure his voice was low, he continued, "There's nothing wrong with it. People like who they like."

Lori eyed Adam, and said, face even redder, "She's really pretty."

Adam glanced behind him, at the curly haired boy, and with his face nearly as red as Lori's said, "Yeah, some people just are."

**Author's Note:**

> If you were curious, Lori and Jenni lose contact with Adam but they grow up to be that gross sweet couple that dated since HS and end up getting married after college and raising 2.5 kids together and are (mostly) happy for the rest of their lives.


End file.
